Art Journaling… If It Scares You (Tutorial)

My Mojo has been on holiday lately. Does that happen to you? I’ve been lucky that this is the first prolonged stretch where I’ve experience it. Believe me, it’s not fun. I decided I simply had to sit down and push through.

If it Scares You…

Here’s how this page started… with a very vibrant green gelli print:

After trying several things to no avail, I toned it down with some white paint. I also used stencils and washi tape. Click here if you’re interested in more projects with washi tape.

Art Journal Stamps

People frequently ask me what kinds of stamps they can use in art journals. It depends on the paper in the journal. I find it very difficult to stamp on rough textured paper. You can work around that by stamping on smooth paper, cutting it out, and gluing it into your art journal.

This gentleman is a favorite wood-mount stamp that I’ve had for ages. After stamping him on smooth manila card stock, I colored with Distress Inks and Distress Markers before adhering the image to the art journal page.

I went through several attempts at finding a quote. Follow me on Instagram if you want to see in-progress photos. I ended up using this one from StencilGirl (Carolyn Dube), after blocking off unwanted words with post-its.

Here’s a close-up of my gent:

And here’s the background before I added a light wash of blue:

Missing Mojo

I was relieved when this page came together. Walking away and coming back to it another day provided time for a new perspective. What do you find helps, if your Mojo has gone missing?

Comments

Your piece turned out really well. When I get in the lost mojo mode, sometimes cleaning my studio really helps. I find that if it is too cluttered, I just have no motivation. I also find things I forgot I had, which helps.

Hello Marjie, thanking you for sharing your website; really liking what you’re doing with ‘found-type’, just reminds me that typography is everywhere 🙂 And the loss of the mojo thing, it’s difficult, I know, but you seem to have a lot of ideas sources, so I don’t imagine you’ll be inactive for long. Wishing you well 🙂